Conventional methods for textile manufacturing are complex due to the wide variety of steps, processes, substrates, and machineries involved. Starting from processing raw natural or manufactured fibers into finished fabric, textile operations can be broadly classified into two steps: dry processing and wet processing. Dry processing involves many steps, but they are mainly mechanical processes and they tend not to produce as much environmental waste as wet processing. Wet processing involves not only mechanical processes, but also chemical heavy preparation that can create significant environmental impact.
During traditional wet processing, fabric has to be cleaned and prepared, and that often involves scouring, bleaching, heat setting, texturing and so forth. Once prepared, the fabric is ready for printing and dyeing and is often followed by a finishing step in which the fabric is conditioned with different chemicals, such as fabric softeners, anti-microbial agents, stain-release agents and so forth, for more effective characteristics and performance.
There are at least two major problems associated with the traditional wet processing method. First, many individual steps are required under separate operations, which means multiple machines must be used. The different machines and steps often require the textile to travel from site to site or even from country to country for assembly into the final product.
Attempts have been made to save time and labor costs by consolidating a few chemical processes into one step. U.S. Pat. No. 6,251,210 (to Bullock) describes a method to finish a fabric with both stain resistant, water repellant and anti-microbial agents in one setting. U.S. Pat. No. 7,037,346 (to Cates et al.) also describes a textile substrate that contains multi-finishes in the fluorochemical group. Once both cationic and repellant properties are applied to the fabric, the fabric is then dipped into an aqueous solution before being moved to a printing station for printing and dyeing. The drawbacks of these patents are that they still do not solve the problem of consolidating multiple processing steps into one single, continuous process. Again, the multiple processing steps generate significant cost in time and labor but they also create a second more serious problem—pollution.
The use of catalysts and chemicals during traditional wet processing often generates a panoply of environmental waste ranging from air to water pollutants. Efforts have been made in which a single-pass sublimation machine is used that consolidates many of the processing steps into one continuous process. However, by failing to identify commercially viable non-polluting catalysts, the single-pass process still faces a hurdle for successful commercial application.
Various efforts also have been made to generate non-polluting catalysts such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,101,921 (to Edwards) and Korean Pat. No: KR2050328A (to Cha et al.), but these catalysts are still unable to provide for textile preparation in one combined single-pass machinery. The challenge is to combine a single-pass machine that incorporates all the wet processing steps into one continuous process with non-polluting catalysts that limit labor costs, time, and pollution.
Thus, it would be desirable to have a textile that is both pre-treated, and be activated and conditioned in a continuous process with more efficiency and that generates less pollution. It would also be desirable to have a fabric that can enter into a machine as roll goods or cut piece to be prepared, finished and permanently dyed, and printed in less than one continuous minute, and be ready for immediate cutting or sewing.